Chapter 1

Dr. Temperance Brennan sighed loudly. This was already the start of long day. She would never admit it to her FBI partner but she missed the field work when she was cooped up in her lab too long. In the beginning it pained her to even think about leaving her lab at night. Now, to go out into the field meant seeing something different, learning something new…

Seeing Seeley Booth… She sighed again.

"Bones!"

Dr. Brennan jumped up from her chair with a squeak.

Her partner walked into her office, "You okay Bones?"

Biting her lip she answered, "You just startled me Booth. Do we have a case?" She walked over to her couch and sat, grabbing a file on the low coffee table in front of her. Not to really look at; just to have in her hands.

"Well, Bones, sorta." Booth sat next to her.

Bones' face scrunched up in confusion.

"Bones, we got called in by NCIS. Navy lieutenant found dead on the driveway of the White House. We are actually going because they found several… Extra bones."

"Is it our case or NCIS's?"

"Good question, Bones. We're going to meet together and find out. You're my ace in the hole."

"I don't understand what that means."

"Ace in the hole—You're the best anthropologist in the country so you are my way in to the crime scene."

"Ace in the hole being a term for a playing card that you have kept in reserve to use to win a game?" She took Booth's nod as a confirmation and continued, "Should I be pleased about that?"

"Didn't I just call you the best?" His turn to sigh, "Yes, you should be pleased."

Brennan smiled at that.

"So, let's go Bones. It doesn't do to keep the Squids…" He glanced at her and clarified, "The Navy, waiting."

"Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI and Dr. Temperance Brennan, Jeffersonian Institute," Booth and Bones both showed their ID to the DC Metro Policeman who stood at the yellow tape. The area had been cordoned off for almost a block in any direction. They had already had to show their ID's twice before.

"For all of this we better get some time with the evidence…" Booth grumbled. He walked up to the coroner's van and watched for a moment. Brennan knew what he was doing. He was trying to figure out who was in charge.

"Boss!" said a tall young man in an NCIS cap while making a motion with his head toward Brennan and Booth as he clicked several more pictures of the dead body.

An older man with graying hair turned, saw them and walked over to them, "Gibbs, NCIS."

"Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI and my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian," Booth introduced.

Brennan nodded politely then started walking over to where the young man was taking pictures. Brennan would let Booth make tiny talk with the "Boss." The camera man smiled, nervously, "Tim McGee. Can I help you, ma'am?"

"Dr. Temperance Brennan. I'm here to see the bones." She started to walk past when a raven haired woman walked in between her and the remains, arms folded.

"Ziva David, NCIS. You'll have to wait here."

Brennan sighed, "Booth!"

She felt him there, as if he had been waiting, "Yeah, Bones?" His hand touching the small of her back.

"Am I here to look at bones or are we going back to the lab?"

Gibbs smiles, "Dr. Brennan, we were just discussing that. Agent Booth and I agreed that we'll transport them to NCIS but you will be given full access there."

"Unacceptable," Brennan said, simply.

"Bones… We can take them after they look at them," Booth trying to intervene.

"My equipment is better than anything we can find at NCIS."

The NCIS agents all bristle at this statement.

"Bones, let's play nice…" Booth says loudly.

"Can I look at them now?" Brennan asks the woman in front of her, "I won't touch them."

Agent David looks to Gibbs who nods. Ziva moves, quickly, out of her way.

Brennan walks around the dead lieutenant's body, which looked, to Booth, like it had been left out for weeks and mauled by animals. Brennan stops and says, "The extra bones, as you put it Booth, are: one femur, four metatarsals, and one sternum. The sternum was removed from the ribs very smoothly, possibly by a surgical saw? But not from this body, obviously. The spare bones are clean… I'm not sure if they were boiled clean or chemically treated. May I kneel down?" She sees Gibbs nod again so she kneels down and without touching the bones or the remains, she continues, "I would say these bones are all from someone in their late teens to early twenties."

"Impressive," came a lightly accented voice, "Jethro, she just told you more about the bones than I did with twice as much time with them."

The older gentleman stepped out of the coroner's van, offering his ungloved hand, "Dr. Mallard. Ducky, to my friends, dear lady. " Booth had taken a step back to take in the ring of agents that was gathering.

"Dr. Mallard," Brennan stood, shaking his hand, "What did you think of this?"

"I thought to get it back to my lab to make a through examination in better surroundings. I did notice the extra… Err… Pieces, if you will, and that's why I asked for an anthropologist. You specifically as I read your article in the J of Anthropology last year...."

"Whoa, Bones, you published an article in a journal? Why didn't I read it?" Booth was asking from behind her.

Brennan ignored Booth, knowing that would be a conversation for a later time and went back to look at the bones.

Dr. Mallard continued, "I have also read your books, of course… Marvelous works of fiction."

Brennan looked up at Dr. Mallard with confusion evident on her face. Booth intervened, "Compliment, Bones…"

She smiled, "Usually people ask me if it's based on real life. I'm not used to people not asking me that anymore…" she shifted her eyes and her weight back to a crouch near the bones, "And it's not."

Dr. Mallard looked back to Booth who nodded and rolled his eyes, "I'm Special Agent Booth, FBI." The doctor and the agent shook hands.

"I've gotten all I can from here. If you're going to take them to your lab you should shake a foot. I want them quickly," she stood and wiped her knees of gravel.

"Not foot, Bones. Leg," Booth muttered. The NCIS agents were looking at her strangely but she barely noticed.

"David, you're going with Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan. Doctor, pick up anything you will need from your lab and please come to the Naval Yard."

"Of course, Agent Gibbs," Dr. Brennan replied as Booth took his customary place behind her. Agent David followed. There was an exchange of glances within the NCIS group that told Booth that these people were just as close as Bones and her squints.

Getting to Booth's car took significantly less time than the trip to the remains had.

"Where are you from in Israel, Agent David?" Brennan asked as she offered the other woman the passenger seat which was silently declined with a shake of the head.

David's eyes narrowed, "How did you…?"

"Your accent. I was last in Israel a few years ago. Megiddo. It was a very interesting archeological dig that they asked me to look at some bones," Brennan answered as she buckled herself in, "You might want to buckle in. Booth drives like an angry person."

"Mad man, I think you mean Bones," Booth mutters, as he starts the car and pulls into traffic.

"Bones? Why do you call her that?"

"Cause she plays with the bones."

"Booth! I don't play with bones! I study them!"

David studied the interaction.

"So you never told me where you're from, Agent David."

"You're right. I didn't."

"Ooookay…" Booth says, trying to ease the rising tension, "Bones, you don't like talking about growing up either so just let it go, would ya?"

Brennan nods and sits back for the ride to the Jeffersonian.